Up at 4am, race day breakfast of oatmeal, Ensure Complete, and some fruit. Got to Tempe Beach Park around 5:40am and got everything setup on transition. Headed over to the Racelab tent around 6am and hung out until about 7:15am. We then headed down to the water to watch the earlier waves start. In corral at 7:25am and started at 7:37am.

Event warmup:

Relaxed

Swim

27m 14s

1500 meters

01m 49s / 100 meters

Comments:

Can't complain too much about this swim. I need to start the race towards the front of the pack as opposed to in the middle. Will make the first 200 yards way easier. Thought it was a good swim course and was a great opportunity to get some practice in before IMAZ.

Did see some athletes cheating. Several were ignoring the buoys and swimming to the inside of them. BS if you ask me.

What would you do differently?:

Start towards the front. Also, my HR was high coming out of the water and I'll need to pay attention to this before IMAZ. Have to make sure my HR isn't too high before the bike on 11/17.

Transition 1

02m 33s

Comments:

Average T1. My times in transitions have improved but I can still be quicker in T1. I probably wasted 30-45 seconds.

What would you do differently?:

Need to practice T1. Not a big deal but it's free time to be saved.

Bike

1h 13m 42s

24.64 miles

20.06 mile/hr

Comments:

Pretty good bike for me. I'm such a bad cyclist so getting through this at 20MPH+ w/ good legs for the run was a success. I'm actively trying to build fitness on the bike but it's a battle. Really hoping I can get through this portion at IMAZ in a decent manner.

The course was good in the sense that it was closed to cars and was technical. I'm so used to out-and-back course with no turns. That said, I saw numerous close calls at turning sections where racers took the turns wide and crossed over into the left when the turn was comlete. So dangerous and they almost wrecked the bikers behind them.

What would you do differently?:

Just keep training. This is about as good as I can do if I want to have a good run.

Transition 2

01m 28s

Comments:

My bike was racked at the far end of T2 so I had to run with my bike for a solid 30-45 seconds. Once at my bike, I got everything off quick, threw my shoes on, grabbed my hat and gel flask and was off.

What would you do differently?:

Nothing. This was my fastest T2 to date. Had bad luck with my assigned transition spot but made the most of it.

Run

48m 32s

6.2 miles

07m 50s min/mile

Comments:

My HR was high off the bike so I was cautious the first couple miles. Really tried to focus on my form and not go out too fast. This kept my HR in-check and I felt good as I approached the start of lap 2. I picked up the pace at this point and finished strong the last 3 miles.

Didn't realize it at the time but I was able to negative split the entire run. Good strategy and execution so I'm very happy with this performance.

What would you do differently?:

Nothing

Post race

Warm down:

Grabbed some food and water/gatorade in the finisher area. Set my sunglasses down at some point and they were never to be seen again. Bummer

What limited your ability to perform faster:

The bike. I've really enjoyed triathlon this year but man do I hate the bike.

Event comments:

The race itslef was very good. I ranked it as average for several reasons -

1) Race registration and bike check-in was only between 12-5pm the day before the race. Newsflash - it's hot in AZ in September. Why not begin registartion at 8am so we can get it taken care when the weather is tolerable? Also, making us do this between 12-5 screws up your entire day.
2)They made athletes go to a "mandatory meeting" at 1:30pm when it was 105+ out. Real smart...
3) Transition area security was a COPMPLETE JOKE. It was so bad that I might not do this race again unless things are changed. I heard of at least two bikes and a pair of bike shoes being stolen out of transition area DURING the race. How do they let that happen? I'm doing Soma in a month and will be locking my bike up when it's in transition.

staffing bike check out with 2 kids that really dont care isnt the way to go.... i walked in and right out while they chatted away and i had even changed clothes so wasnt in race gear and my number wasnt visible. Glad i dont have a $10k bike

staffing bike check out with 2 kids that really dont care isnt the way to go.... i walked in and right out while they chatted away and i had even changed clothes so wasnt in race gear and my number wasnt visible. Glad i dont have a $10k bike

I made a comment when I left about how easy it would be to steal a bike in transition. All they checked on me on the wy out was the hand written race number on my arm. I could have walked into transition (they were letting everyone in when I went to retrieve my bike), found a bike I liked, then wrote that bib number on my arm. I really hope they do a complete overhaul of their race "security."